5 Skills Product Managers Should Put on Their Resume

Lots of people want to be product managers these days. No wonder — this is challenging work which currently brings in the highest average salary offers of any tech job. But more interest means more competition. Product managers seeking new job opportunities must fight to stand out. Easier said than done?

The best product managers focus on results — value you delivered to customers, the company, and your team.

Our Customer Success team members at Aha! are all product management experts. They all spent many years working as product managers. Together they have led hundreds of products, totaling billions of dollars in revenue.

We know what it takes to be successful in this demanding role. So, we gathered the team’s recommendations — designed to help product managers at all career stages create resumes that highlight the skills that really matter. Of course, the demands for an entry-level position and those for a more senior product leader will be different. But we have seen what works in both cases.

You want to highlight your skills and experience in a way that instantly shows what you have accomplished.

If you have limited product management experience, you will want to highlight areas of responsibility and value creation — without overstating or exaggerating. For senior product leaders, the trick is limiting your focus so you do not overwhelm recruiters with all the details of your experience bringing products to market.

It is worth noting that this is not a template — not everybody will have all of the skills and experience we list out below. And even if you do, you should be judicious about what is most relevant to you and the roles you are applying for.

Here are five focus areas that should be included on a strong product manager resume:

StrategyProduct managers are instrumental in defining the direction of the product and evangelizing their company’s reasons for making it. If you were not solely responsible for this work, then include experience that shows how you supported other senior team members in setting goals and planning strategy. More seasoned product managers will want to highlight how they go beyond maintaining the status quo, from overcoming product challenges to responsibilities outside their everyday purview.

RoadmapProduct managers are responsible for creating and updating the product roadmap, as well as coordinating tasks and timetables related to the plan. If you are newer to product management, you will want to focus on your role in executing on product plans and supporting senior leaders. If you have logged a few more years, you should detail how you prioritized what was built and championed it across the organization.

Release managementWhether your development team practices agile, waterfall, or another methodology, how you manage releases defines your product journey and turns your strategy into actual work. Describe how you led the cross-functional team, the cadence of your releases, and how you kept senior leadership updated. Also share how you adjusted the plan in light of new information and feedback and communicated changes to key stakeholders.

Led product team meetings

Managed backlogs and prioritized technical work

Wrote user stories and defined requirements for design and engineering teams

Collaborated with design and engineering teams

Drafted release notes for product launches

Measured adoption, usage data, and business impact of launches

Monitored and optimized release cycle processes

IdeasProduct managers take ideas — your own, plus those from customers, executives, and peers — and determine which ones will push the product forward. If possible, newer product managers should list out their involvement in prioritization. Veteran product leaders will want to highlight how they reviewed those ideas and the tangible output of their decisions.

Worked with internal teams and stakeholders to generate ideas

Identified ideas that aligned with strategy

Explained why certain ideas were prioritized and others were not

Created repository for submitting product feedback and requests

Percentage of shipped features related to ideas

CustomersProduct managers represent the voice of the customer for internal teams. This means you must understand what problems customers need to solve, what they like and dislike about your product, as well as how they currently use it (and want to use it in the future). New and experienced product managers alike should showcase their completed customer research, including how often they spoke with users directly.

Keep it short — most hiring managers and recruiters will not read beyond the first page

Be specific — list the applications you have used to manage your work

Write clearly — use common terminology, rather than your company’s lingo

Tell the truth — present real numbers and do not inflate what was accomplished

Your product management resume should show you are ready to step into the role and start contributing right away.

Product managers must possess a wide range of abilities and experience. Obviously, you should only list the skills and experience that you actually have. If you see anything above that you fall short on, now is the time to start developing those areas. That is how you will become a product manager who is in exceptionally high demand.

About Brian and Aha!

Brian seeks business and wilderness adventure. He is the co-founder and CEO of Aha! — the world’s #1 product roadmap software — and the author of Lovability. His two previous startups were acquired by well-known public companies. Brian writes and speaks about product and company growth and the adventure of living a meaningful life.

Sign up for a free trial of Aha! and see why 200,000 users at the world’s leading product and engineering teams trust Aha! to build brilliant product strategy and visual roadmaps.

Comments

This is a very helpful article and the fact that it’s based on input from the product team i.e. data driven, makes it even more relevant to me. It’s taken me a while to put together a resume that shows the skills relevant to me as a product manager.
Other schools of thought also see Leadership (managing stakeholders, leading without authority) as a top quality for Product Managers and I agree with this especially because you have to deal with different stakeholders from Executives to your team members.